Never The Same Walk

Bluey episodes have become the background to our lives. I’m sure we are no different than most other parents of toddlers.

An episode that I chuckle at often is an episode in which Bluey’s parents, Bandit and Chilly, say everyone needs to pitch in to clean the house. The parents fund themselvesDistracted  as they watch their girls walk back and forth from one room to another to pick up the toys and return them to where they belong.

The chores are delayed as they wait to see if either of the girl will walk past the doorway “regularly”. Each time of the girl passes the opening she is walking differently. Hopping, skipping, back wards, sideways, crab walk, etc.  After while the parents even try imitating the different dances that the girls do unknowingly.

The imitation of life in Bluey is so refreshing.

My 2 youngest girls came early. There are a lot of challenges to having premature kiddos, but one blessing is getting newborns for longer than most. We got a few added months of sleepy, cuddly newborns. Content just to be help and rocked, I would carry them around swaying side to side soaking up the nearness of their little bodies.

But not matter how small they start out, they do in fact get bigger. My girlies also enjoyed being held for much longer than most, taking their time to learn to crawl and walk on their own.

My youngest had a signature scoot.  Instead of crawling on her hands and knees, she scooted on her bottom moving her little legs. She was fast as can be. There was rarely a person that didn’t comment on it. She had a signature scoot.

My mom asked me to send her a video to save because she said, “You never know the last time you will see her do it.”

And sure enough… One day unbeknownst to me, she decided she was ready to walk. And she loved it so much that she was going to walk all the time.

One day scooting, the next day toddling, the day after that climbing… or at least it seems.

There is no lack of movement in our house. The thudding of feet down the hall is multiplied by three now. The silly dances and the bike races, and the jumping games. Movement is always happening. Even movie nights on the couch are full of wiggles and squirms and trips back and forth to the bathroom or the kitchen.

And I think back to the days when I could hold my sleeping baby on my chest. In the blink of the eye, she is a toddling little girl who can’t be contained.

For now our cuddling time together has decrease significantly because they have too much of the world to experience. So what can I do to join them in experiencing the world with them?

I can hold their hand and dance with them in the kitchen. I can pitch them a ball and push them in the stroller.

And I wonder in a few years, what will I be watching my kids do.

Will they be turning cartwheels? Or twirling pirouettes? Kicking soccer goals? Will they be driving a car away from me?

I hope that when they look back at the way they experienced the world, they remember me alongside of them. Keeping pace with them as they move through out their world. Not always carrying them but never far behind.

And I hope I will never be too timid to dance and wiggle and move however keeps me in step with them.

 This post is part of a blog hop with Exhale—an online community of women pursuing creativity alongside motherhood, led by the writing team behind Coffee + Crumbs. Click here to view the next post in the series "Sway."